No Strings Attached
by Hikari-chan
Summary: A chance meeting between Kid and Ai changes a few things between Ai and Conan. 3 of 3 parts uploaded. KAC triangle
1. Part 1: Royal Flush

No Strings Attached  
_Part 1: Royal Flush_

By Hikari-chan

Disclaimer: If I own Conan or any of its related characters and series, I wouldn't be here writing fanfiction, complaining about my job, and have to pay off my student loan debt now, would I?

Notes: The idea is completely and totally inspired by one of June's LJ post about scenes she would like to see in Detective Conan. All 4,000 glorious words here are spawned from her idea. Credit all to her. And yes, you read right. It does say "part 1" up there with the title, so there's a planned parts 2 and 3.

**Genre:** General, pointless, attempted humour (if you squint)  
**Rating:** PG for minor swearing  
**Pairing:** maybe sort of Kid/Ai/Conan, if you have a couple of shots before you start reading and squint really, really hard  
**Word Count:** 4166

To June for the original idea. To Rae for being an awesome beta (and not killing me XD).

And a note for the FFN version: I can't believe I'm fighting with the formatting to post this.

-----

"Please?"

He clasped his hands together and gave the girl scientist in front of him the puppy-dog eyes, the look that always won Ran over. The girl in front of him right then, however, was neither amused nor impressed.

"No," she deadpanned.

"But Haibara," he started.

"You're whining, Kudo-kun," she interrupted.

Edogawa Conan, once Kudo Shinichi, high school detective extraordinaire, snapped his mouth shut at the girl's observation. For as long as he had known Haibara Ai, once Miyano Shiho, head scientist of the APTX-4869 Project, he had never been able to convince her to do anything she didn't want to do, and he didn't think today was going to be the first time he would achieve that. He sighed and decided he had a better chance at trying to be at two places at once than at convincing Haibara of helping him out.

How did things always complicate themselves like this anyways?

It had certainly started off simple enough.

Ran had gone over to Sonoko's for a sleepover the night before, and the latter had planned an all-day shopping trip, which was going to end with a night at a karaoke with all of their high school friends. Normally, Conan would have wanted to tag along, because who knew what Sonoko would make Ran do at the karaoke? Instead, in this case, the timing was perfect. About a week ago, Kid had sent out a heist note in its usual riddle form. The once-high-school detective had successfully pieced together the date and place about three days ago. Kogorou had declared weeks ago that he was taking this day off because the Okino Yoko Special was going to be on television, and Conan had been racking his brain trying to come up with an excuse when Ran had said she would be spending the night at Sonoko's.

Naturally, the solution came very simply after that. He only had to mention to Ran that he would be spending the night with Agasa-hakase since she wasn't going to be home and she had smiled and sent him off, knowing that he would be in better hands with the professor than her half-drunk father.

Haibara had been none too pleased at being taken away from her lab for a full day, as Conan had not yet pieced together the exact time of the heist, but she had said something about a battle between Holmes and Lupin and tagged along anyways.

The museum where the heist was supposed to take place was a twenty story building with the bottom ten stories open to public and the top ten filled with offices. Five minutes ago, someone had come down from the elevator to the first floor, where Agasa, Conan, and Ai had planted themselves to watch for the entrance of "suspicious characters", and screamed that there was a murder on the ninth floor.

So now, here they were, standing with the police on the ninth floor.

"You never fail to attract dead people, do you?" Ai had asked him, arms crossed as she unblinkingly examined the body of Fujioka Shinji, the accounting clerk of the museum who looked like he had been strangled using the Egyptian necklaces on display in the next room.

Conan had shot her an annoyed look before going back to his investigation. "It's not like I want them to drop dead," he muttered.

"Ah well, I suppose an optimist would say that you wouldn't have a lot of business otherwise, with the career you've chosen for yourself," Ai smirked, watching Conan bend down to look at the corner of a display case.

Conan glared in her general direction, and momentarily distracted, caught sight of a policeman jotting down notes next to an Egyptian sundial. He frowned and glanced at his watch.

"Shit," he swore aloud, jumping up from the ground.

"What's wrong, Shinichi?" Agasa asked, seeing the normally composed detective suddenly flustered.

"I just figured out the last part of Kid's note," Conan explained. "If you take the riddle line about time and use it in the context of a sundial..."

"…You get eight o'clock," Ai finished, catching on.

Agasa frowned. "But a sundial only works when there's light," he pointed out.

"That's what the 'darkness sees the light' line is about," Conan continued, speeding towards the elevator with Ai and Agasa on his heels. "Normally, it should be the daytime because sundials don't work at night, but Kid's note is saying the time as it should be, but in the dark, so it should be eight o'clock in the evening."

"Which is five minutes from now," Agasa commented, looking at his watch. "So what are you going to do about the murder case?"

Conan stopped running, almost making Ai and Agasa crash into him. He looked between the elevator and back to the crime scene, where the puzzled police were still discussing the situation. The Evening Star, a pearl that supposedly shone at night, was on display on the third floor of the museum, but if he ran for it now, who knew how long chasing the Kid would take? By the time he came back, they would have cleaned up the murder scene, and some important evidence might be lost. On the other hand, if he investigated the murder right now, he would never catch Kid before the Phantom Thief escaped.

As far as he knew, no one but himself had come close to catching the Kid. The thief was obnoxious and a little too smart. Conan glanced at Haibara out of the corner of his eye and bit his lip. Unless... maybe...

"Hey Haibara," he started.

"No," she said before he had finished asking.

"Please?"

He clasped his hands together and gave the girl scientist in front of him the puppy-dog eyes, the look that always won Ran over. The girl in front of him right then, however, was neither amused nor impressed.

"No," she deadpanned.

"But Haibara," he started.

"You're whining, Kudo-kun," she interrupted.

He snapped his mouth shut. Kudo Shinichi never whined, and Edogawa Conan wasn't going to start now. Well, at least Kid always returned what he stole, even if he wasn't there to catch him. Still, it was a matter of principle. As a detective, he shouldn't be letting the thief get away with this.

"Well," Ai's voice interrupted his thoughts, "unless there's some kind of incentive."

"Incentive?" Conan prompted.

"Burberry Blue Label has released a new limited edition purse for Spring," Ai replied with that annoying smirk he always wanted to wipe off her face.

"You know that's bribing, right?" Conan responded.

"Correction: bribing is when you offer me incentives to do something illegal," Ai said dryly. "I'm negotiating."

Conan took a look at his watch. They didn't have time left for this bantering. "Fine, fine," he agreed. "The Evening Star's on the third floor. You just need to stall him until I get there. Give me fifteen minutes. If you lose him, just head to the roof. Kid has an affinity for high places."

"I'd think so, since he needs to fly off with a hang glider," Ai muttered.

"Maybe I should go with you, Ai-kun," Agasa suggested, a worried frown on his face.

The elevator doors opened, and Ai stepped in, shaking her head at the professor. "You need to stay to help Kudo-kun denounce the murderer," she pointed out.

As the elevator doors closed, Conan quickly turned back to the murder case at hand, resolving to finish the investigation and denouncement in the fifteen minutes he had promised Haibara.

"Oi, Shinichi," Agasa-hakase hovered around his next-door neighbor, obviously still worried. "Are you sure she's going to be fine against Kid?"

Conan nodded absent-mindedly, once again examining the display case he had previously been occupied with. "Kid has a 'no one gets hurt' policy," he murmured. "He wouldn't touch Haibara."

Agasa sighed. At this point, there wasn't much else he could do. He just hoped Shinichi would finish this case quickly so Ai-kun didn't have to face the infamous Phantom Thief on her own.

-----

Ai stepped out of the elevator on the third floor, already debating how she was supposed to stall someone like the Kid for fifteen long minutes. Her thoughts were interrupted by the loud shouts of Nakamori-keibu and his crew of policemen.

"That's Kid! He's getting away!" Nakamori literally roared as the band of policemen came barreling towards the elevator.

Ai sidestepped quickly and narrowly missed being crushed by the policemen as they jumped to dog-pile onto the bandit in white. Not surprisingly, the thief disappeared in a puff of pink smoke as the crew crashed heavily onto the floor, reappearing in all his glory next to the shrunken scientist. He kneeled down and peered into her turquoise eyes through the monocle.

"Wrong chibi," he grinned, "unless chibi-Holmes has taken to cross-dressing."

Ai couldn't help the smirk that twitched on the corner of her lips, the sudden image of Conan in Ayumi's clothes appearing in her mind's eye at the thief's suggestion. If nothing else, it should be filed away as a good "negotiating" condition, the next time he asked for a favour.

"KID!"

The Phantom Thief glanced up at Nakamori-keibu, who looked like steam was going to come out of his ears. He grinned and held his thumb and index fingers together, a red rose appearing suddenly in his hand.

"I'm sorry to say I think we have to cut this meeting short, Ojou-chan," Kid mused, an amused tone hanging in his voice as he gave Ai the rose.

As soon as Haibara gingerly took the flower out of his hand, he reached for his card gun, shooting three cards at the approaching inspector and successfully keeping the latter a safe distance away. The white figure ran towards the nearest window; and with one foot already on the windowsill, he turned and gave Haibara a mocking salute.

"Give chibi-Holmes my love," he snickered.

And then he was out the window and gone.

Ai frowned, belatedly remembering that this was only the third floor, and the hand glider really wouldn't work well this close to the ground. She hurried towards the window and peered around it, looking for signs of the thief, but the only thing she found was a large crowd holding I-love-Kid signs below, standing and cheering outside the museum. She raised an eyebrow at this. It was odd. Kid usually thrived on performances and the crowd. Where was the flashy escape scene where he took off on the motorcycle with her friend, the miniature detective, on a skateboard with the turbo engine, close behind?

"Search the building! And you!" Nakamori roared, pointing a finger at Haibara, who gave him a chilly glare that made the inspector drop his finger and take a step back. "Err, don't show up at crime scenes again. They're dangerous."

Ai rolled her eyes as the policemen disbanded from their tangled pile on the floor and started their search around the building for signs of the thief. Of course crime scenes were dangerous for _normal_ children, but she was hardly normal, and she didn't exactly find crime scenes. They liked to find her, or rather, they liked to find Edogawa Conan, who she just happened to hang out with quite a bit due to their bizarre but similar circumstances. Letting out a small sigh, she headed for the elevator. She might as well go back to the murder scene and tell Kudo that Kid had escaped.

As she waited for the ascending elevator to arrive, Ai noted that the three cards Kid had shot at Nakamori-keibu, now lying forgotten on the floor, were the Ace of hearts, the Jack of hearts, and the Ten of hearts. For a master at magic tricks, he certainly seemed to be lacking in his card shuffling skills. He should have shot three Aces, Ai thought with some dry humour.

A small _ding_ from the elevator indicated its arrival, and the miniature scientist stepped in and hit the button for the ninth floor, thoughtfully twirling the red rose in her hand. She thought Kid was quite the enigma, to be honest, because it certainly took a kind of courage to laugh so blatantly in the face of law. Or, she mused to herself, it took a kind of stupidity to laugh so blatantly in the face of law. The elevator stopped on the seventh floor, and a middle-aged woman stepped in, hitting the button for the top floor.

Ai glanced at the woman out of the corner of her eye, and sensing nothing dangerous about the brunette with the briefcase, she shrugged and went back to musing while watching the floor numbers light up on the electronic panel above the elevator doors.

All of a sudden, the light corresponding to the eighth floor went off and the lights went out as the elevator jerked to a stop.

"Eh?" the woman next to Ai cried out and went to the panel to hit some buttons. "Hello?"

"There must be either a mistake in the control room or some confusion," Haibara spoke up to the nervous woman. "No surprise, with both a Kid heist and a murder at the same time in the same building. Someone down there must have gotten confused and hit an emergency stop button either by mistake or on purpose."

The woman smiled down at the girl and looked at her a little incredulously. "You seem awfully calm for a young girl," she commented.

Haibara shrugged. "How you react to a situation only depends on your experiences," she replied. "A man who has never known pain will wail like a toddler the first time he feels it. A young boy who has seen too much death won't even blink at a corpse."

"You have been trapped in an elevator before?" the woman asked.

"No, I have been trapped in darkness a lot worse than an elevator before," Ai answered.

There was a pause so long and silent that Ai started to wonder if she had either scared off the woman enough to stop her from asking anything else, which would be desirable, or if the woman had somehow found out that she really wasn't as young as she looked.

"Your parents, they don't treat you very well?" the woman questioned softly, seeming to know she was treading on dangerous ground.

In the darkness, Ai let a bitter smile cross her face. "I don't believe I can answer that question. They died when I was very young."

Another pause followed her answer. "An accident?" the woman ventured to ask.

"I don't know the answer to that," Ai replied honestly.

For a moment, she wondered why she was being so truthful with a perfect stranger. Granted, she wasn't giving out enough information to give herself away, but she was still giving out more information than she normally would to a strange woman in an elevator of a building with _two_ crime scenes. Then again, perhaps it was because this was a perfect stranger that she didn't need to hide behind her normal mask of cool indifference. The woman would remember her as an odd little girl and move on with her life.

"I lost my father to an accident of that sort," the woman said suddenly.

"Excuse me?" Ai frowned, not sure if she understood. Her parents had been killed by the Organization. There was, of course, no trace of the murderer as it was made to look like an accident. She highly doubted that anyone else would have the same kind of dilemma. But then, the Organization had members everywhere, so it should be no surprise that someone else had the same thing inflicted upon them. It was, in truth, only surprising because this woman had lived to tell about it.

"If I have guessed the accident that took your parents' lives correctly," the woman reiterated tentatively, "then it was the same kind of accident that took my father's life."

Ai took some steps back from the woman, confused and distracted about her last reply, before another jerk sent the elevator into motion again, the lights coming back on. Wordlessly, the woman reached forward to the panel and pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator, having restarted, bypassed the ninth floor, and it was while watching the light for the eleventh floor come on in the electronic panel that something struck Ai as extremely odd.

"Do you work late often?" she voiced quietly.

The woman looked down at her. "Sometimes."

"Is your office on the top floor?" Ai wondered.

"No," the stranger laughed softly. "It's on the seventh floor."

"For a woman leaving work then, isn't it strange that she would be going up the elevator instead of down?" Ai continued. "Why are you going to the roof?"

"I've left something in my boss's office," the woman replied easily.

"And isn't it funny," Ai mused again, delicately putting a finger to her chin, "that your office is on the seventh floor when almost all of the offices are between the eleventh and twentieth floor? Also, you left work _after_ two crimes happened instead of before. Most people were cleared out for the Kid heist and those who weren't were certainly called in to the murder scene on the ninth floor."

The elevator gave a _ding_ and the strange woman stepped out onto the top floor. Ai followed her wordlessly as they took a final set of stairs up to the open roof, the woman's high heels echoing in the emptiness of the hall and the quietness of the night.

"I've always told little girls," the woman began as she reached into her briefcase, "that they would be much cuter if they asked fewer questions." And with a swish of fabric and a flash of white which momentarily blocked Ai's view of the mysterious figure, the Phantom Thief Kid was once again standing in front of the shrunken scientist.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and took her free hand in his gloved one, dropping a light kiss on the back of it. "You should stop hanging out with chibi-Holmes," Kid muttered, a slight amusement dancing in his eyes that Ai found rather enchanting. "He'll scare all the boys away."

"Ah, but who will buy me the expensive clothes and purses if I stop getting him out of trouble?" Ai replied sarcastically, leaving no doubt in Kid's mind that she could very well afford those things if she didn't find such pleasure in exasperating their mutual acquaintance.

"It seems he finds trouble a lot, doesn't he?" Kid mused aloud.

"Either that, or trouble finds him a lot," Ai rolled her eyes.

"You care very much about him," Kid pointed out.

Ai scowled at him, sending him the same chilling look that she had given Nakamori-keibu before, but the Phantom Thief hardly looked affected by her patented glare of death. She pulled her hand roughly from his grasp, noting that he had been holding it much too long for it to be merely considered a polite gesture.

"I must admit it's rather disappointing to find out," he murmured softly, standing up and walking towards the ledge of the building to survey the crowd below. They roared to life at seeing their the figure in white on the rooftop.

Ai felt an uncharacteristic blush creeping onto her cheeks, and she studied the thief's profile in the moonlight. He was obviously a performer, someone who thrived on the attention and the thrill of the chase, but there seemed to be a haunting darkness beneath all the glorious whiteness; something sad and melancholic lingered.

"Was it true, what you said?" she asked suddenly.

He turned to give her a smirk. "What? That I was disappointed that you cared about chibi-Holmes?" he asked. "I don't know. A little bit of truth with some dressing up."

"No," Ai deadpanned, even though she was slightly curious as to why Kid was flirting with her. After all, this encounter convinced her that he knew the two of them were not really children. "I mean what you said about your father in the elevator."

He quieted for a moment, and then answered her with a slight nod of his head. "As true as what you said about your parents," he answered.

Ai was silent for a long moment after. If Kid's father was killed by the Organization, then why was he making such flashy appearances all the time? She would have hidden. In fact, she _was_ hiding. But then, what was the purpose of stealing gems and returning them? Did that have something to do with the Organization?

The familiar sound of shuffling feet and the click of a watch snapped her back to reality, and without really considering or thinking what she was doing, she ran and tackled the figure behind the door.

"Ouch!" Conan's voice rang out as the two of them hit the ground.

The tranquilizer needle he shot whizzed by Kid's head and into the oblivion of the night.

"Haibara! What are you doing?" Conan yelled, annoyed that he had missed the chance to sneak up on the elusive thief. If Ai hadn't knocked him out of the way, Conan was sure that the needle would have gotten Kid.

"Hurry up and leave!" Ai snapped at the thief who was still standing on the ledge of the building, a bit of surprise showing on his otherwise composed expression.

He took one glance at her face and understood what she meant. She didn't want him to get caught here, before he had completed whatever he had set out to do. He smiled at her and tipped the top hat down to cover some of his face.

"Thank you, Ojou-chan," he grinned, and with a kiss blown in her direction, he jumped from the ledge and let his obnoxiously flashy hang glider take him away.

"Argh!" Conan gritted his teeth, running towards the edge of the building and watching helplessly as the thief disappeared into the night. "I could have caught him! I _would_ have caught him! Why did you stop me?"

Ai stood up from her position on the ground and brushed some dirt off her clothes, looking for all the world as if she hadn't just saved the Phantom Thief Kid and pissed off her best friend, the detective who was determined to catch said thief.

"I said I would stall him long enough for you to show up in exchange for the purse," Ai replied nonchalantly. "You never said you'd give me anything if you caught him."

"Argh! Is that all this is to you, a business deal?" Conan asked incredulously.

Ai raised an eyebrow at him. "Hasn't it always been just that?"

Conan spluttered for a moment before Ai decided to put him out of his misery.

"How did the murder case go?" she asked.

Conan sighed. "His wife pretended to be picking him up after work and killed him because she thought he was cheating on her with the secretary."

"Interesting," Ai snorted. "Glad I didn't stay for that."

Conan examined her expression and frowned all of a sudden. "Did something happen between you and Kid?" he asked.

"I stalled him," Ai replied.

Conan rolled his eyes. Asking Haibara to tell him something when she didn't want to was like trying to move a dead elephant. "By the way, where did you get the rose?" he sighed. "You didn't have it before."

The shrunken scientist took a look at the flower in her hand, the expression on her face a bewildered one that seemed to say she couldn't remember where she had gotten it. An amused smile then replaced the look and she held out the flower to her companion.

"Kid sends his love," she snickered.

"Err…" Conan stared at the flower as though it was going to explode into a bucket of apples and bananas and crush his foot at any second.

"It doesn't bite," Ai smirked.

Carefully, Conan reached for the flower in her hand. As soon as he touched it, it exploded into a small puff of pink smoke, and in Ai's hands now were the Evening Star and two cards.

Both teenaged children blinked in surprise and stared at the contents. The Evening Star was glowing slightly in the darkness, and Ai cautiously picked it up and held it out to Conan.

"I believe you want that back," she said. "I guess it wasn't what he was looking for."

"I'll return it," Conan replied, taking it and heading for the stairs. "It had better not disappear in a puff of pink smoke."

Still on the rooftop, Ai briefly wondered when and how Kid had managed it. She shrugged and instead, looked curiously at the cards she was still holding. They were a King of hearts and a Queen of hearts.

A royal flush.

Maybe he wasn't so bad at shuffling his cards after all.

-----

End of Part 1.

Word Count: 4166 words


	2. Part 2: Poker Face

No Strings Attached  
_Part 2: Poker Face_

By Hikari-chan

Disclaimer: I'm too tired for this. Not mine. Don't sue.

Notes: Part 2 of 3. I'm a strong believer that if you're going to split up a story into parts, such as trilogies, each part should be able to stand on its own. So if you're reading this and you think you could have understood what's going on without the first part or the third part, then I've done my job. For awhile, I was dissatisfied with the ending to this part. For some reason, it really bothered me, and then the awesomeness that is doRaemon pointed out what was wrong with it. So, big hugs for that. )

Genre: General, pointless (yes, pointless is a genre. P)  
Rating: PG for innuendoes  
Pairing: Kid/Ai/Conan; I suggest vodka to go with the fic, by the way.  
Word Count: 4489

To June, for the original inspiration towards a Kid/Ai/Conan fic that I've wanted to write for a long time. To Rae, for being an awesome and hilarious beta.

-----

"Why are you following me?"

The look on her face was one that promised certain pain and suffering if his answer wasn't satisfactory. Then again, the shrunken detective had interacted with the miniature scientist long enough to know that whatever he said would not meet her expectations anyway.

"I'm not following you," he denied.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "I walked into a broom closet and you were right on my heels," she deadpanned.

Both Kudo Shinichi and his alter ego, Edogawa Conan, might have been well-known for their quick minds and sharp retorts to offenders of law, but in the face of Haibara Ai's accurate observations and dry wit, they were often rendered speechless. He gulped when she narrowed her eyes at him, and quickly retraced his steps, wondering if retreating from the broom closet _before_ she tore him apart was possible.

How did he land himself in these situations anyways?

It had just been one innocent observation.

Following Ran's graduation from high school three years ago, Conan had suggested that he move into Agasa-hakase's house. His "guardian" had been disappointed that he was moving out, but since she would be leaving Tokyo to attend Doshisha University in Kyoto, it was impossible for her to stay at home. She would be moving to Kyoto, and she agreed that leaving Kogorou to take care of Conan was not the best idea in the world, as the boy was only nine and her father was often drunk. Conan had not been particularly thrilled about the idea of Ran leaving Tokyo, but even he had to admit that living with the professor and Haibara was a lot easier than living with the Mouri family. For one thing, going "home" really meant that he could relax and drop the pretenses.

Both Haibara and Agasa-hakase spent a lot of time in their respective labs, the first no doubt working on the antidote to APTX-4869 and the latter doing God-only-knows-what. That left Conan with a lot of free time to investigate the one case he was desperate to crack - taking down the Black Organization.

A few months ago, his hard work all these years had finally paid off. In a showdown that had almost taken his and Haibara's lives and left more than a few police officers heavily injured, all of the Organization members were now either dead or arrested.

Perhaps it was because this case was finally over that he had suddenly noticed the change in the girl he now called his best friend. His observation skills had been too focused elsewhere in the past to notice that there was something weird going on with Haibara, although to be really honest, Conan hadn't even noticed the fact until recently.

Haibara dressed up for Kid heists.

Conan was pretty darn sure of it. Why? He still had to figure that out, but when he had gotten ready to leave for the heist earlier this evening, she had come down to the front foyer in a sleeveless blue and green sundress that fell gracefully down to her knees, a thick white ribbon tied girlishly around her waist.

Conan had gawked at her.

"You're catching flies, Kudo-kun," she had remarked dryly while pulling on a pair of comfortable sandals.

"Why are you dressed like that?" he remembered blurting out tactlessly.

"I can dress however I want," she replied, crossing her arms. "Or is there a law against that nowadays?"

Conan had shaken his head and the two had left the professor's house side by side, heading for the museum where the Heart of Eternity, a heart-shaped blue diamond that was part of the Millennium Jewels collection, was currently on display in Tokyo. It was on their way there that Conan's mind had started to wander, automatically thinking back of the last time he had seen Haibara dressed the way she was right then. Surprisingly, it had been a couple of months ago, during another Kid heist. Frowning, Conan had tried to recall all of the Kid heists he had gone to with Haibara, only to find that she _had_ dressed up, at least in comparison to what she normally wore, for all of the ones that had happened in the past year. He had been suspicious, not to mention very curious, about her behaviour.

"So Haibara," he had said as they walked up the steps to the museum. "How come you've taken an interest in Kid heists? You were always indifferent before."

She shrugged. "You're the one who always tells me to get out of the lab," she replied. "And in comparison to the dead people you seem to attract everywhere you go, I would rather see a jewel being stolen by a flashy, obnoxious magician."

Conan had nothing to say to that, not that he would've had a chance to, since they had arrived in the room where the jewel was on display, promptly being spotted by Nakamori-keibu, the head of the Kaitou Kid Specialists.

"You!" he bellowed, stomping over to the two fake pre-teens.

"Nakamori-keibu," Conan had greeted.

"I thought I told you to stay out of crime scenes!" he yelled. "Kid is a dangerous character!"

"If you're allergic to pink smoke," Ai snickered.

Conan scratched his head. That was one of those things nobody understood about the Phantom Thief. What was up with the pink smoke? Couldn't he use something a little easier on the eyes, like _white_ smoke? He coughed to attract the inspector's attention.

"I hope you don't mind us coming to observe, Nakamori-keibu," he smiled innocently. In truth, he stood a better chance at catching Kid than the inspector could ever hope to, but the best way to be allowed to stay where you weren't supposed to was to flatter the authorities, as Conan had learned in all his years as a shrunken detective.

Nakamori snorted and turned away from the two of them, obviously still fuming. Since Conan had earned a fantastic reputation with Megure-keibu and the First Division, Nakamori couldn't exactly kick them out without a great excuse. Besides, Conan had always been more of a help than a hindrance, so he had always found a way to stay despite Nakamori's protests.

"As long as you stay out of the way!"

"Yes sir!" Conan called back.

He turned to Haibara and dropped the happy mask, wanting to complain about his size, only to find that the girl had left the room while he had been busy convincing Nakamori-keibu to let him stay. Taking a quick glance at his watch and noting that he still had fifteen minutes before the appointed time of the heist, he hurriedly ran into the hall, just catching sight of Haibara's dress as it disappeared around the corner. He managed to stay out of sight and follow her for another couple of minutes, but he didn't exactly know the museum's layout, so when she had turned sharply around a corner, he had run around the corner close behind her, so as not to lose her.

It was rather unfortunate that around the corner was a broom closet, a place he had no reasonable excuse to be.

"Why are you following me?"

The look on her face was one that promised certain pain and suffering if his answer wasn't satisfactory. Then, again, the shrunken detective had interacted with the miniature scientist long enough to know that whatever he said would not meet her expectations anyway.

"I'm not following you," he denied.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "I walked into a broom closet and you were right on my heels," she deadpanned.

Conan laughed nervously and tried to get out of the closet before she decided to make his life a living hell once they went home. He held up his hands in mock surrender and backed into the hall.

"I was just looking for the bathroom and walked into the wrong place," he blurted out quickly, and before Ai could reply, he was running down the hall and back towards the display room.

The heist was supposed to happen in a few minutes anyways. He had no time to ponder why Haibara liked to dress up for Kid heists and hide in broom closets. A frown came to his face as his steps slowed to a stop. If Haibara wanted to watch the heist as she had claimed earlier, why would she be hiding in a broom closet? And if she was going to hide in a broom closet, what was the point of dressing up?

He turned around and headed back towards the broom closet. Some part of his mind reminded him that curiosity killed the cat.

"Detectives are supposed to find the truth," he muttered quietly to himself. "Besides, satisfaction brought the cat back."

-----

Ai sighed as she reached over to close the door to the closet and flipped on the light switch next to the door. One of these days, Conan was going to find out. Then again, with the issues that she had already gone through in her life, dealing with a pissed off detective was the last thing she was worried about. If worse came to worst, she could always deny him his antidote, and then he would leave her alone, and all would be right with the world again.

"Little girls are much prettier when they smile," a singsong voice drifted to her ears from the vent above her.

Seconds later, the figure in white literally dropped in from above, landing gracefully beside her. In a swift motion, he lifted her small hand to his lips and produced a red rose with his free hand, which he held out to her. She plucked the small flower from his grasp and tossed it carelessly onto the shelf behind her, which was filled with dustpans of various shapes and sizes. The Phantom Thief gave her a wounded look, the same one he always gave her after she threw the rose away at every meeting.

"Little girls would smile more if they didn't always meet phantom thieves in broom closets or the public bathroom," Ai remarked dryly.

"I'm open to suggestions," Kid replied with a shrug.

Ai crossed her arms. "I'd like to try midair one of these days," she stated, a mocking tone in her voice. "Fresh air is healthful after all."

The corner of Kid's lips twitched upwards. "I don't think the police would appreciate a second person who jumped off random buildings with hang gliders," he commented.

"When did you have any consideration for the authorities?" she asked, raising an elegant eyebrow at him in the dimness of the room.

He grinned lazily at the question. "Just because I don't have much respect for the authorities, doesn't mean I don't have any consideration for them," he pointed out. "I know they work hard."

"But you work harder, right?" she finished for him.

"So do you, Ojou-chan," he responded.

"I have a reason to keep working," Ai said, "but what do you have to gain from this continuous stealing when all of them are either dead or in jail?"

"I get to see you all dressed up for me every time I show up," he answered cheekily.

An uncharacteristic blush spread itself onto Ai's cheeks, and she looked away from him, focusing her stare on the apparently _fascinating_ broom behind him.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she replied monotonously.

He gave her a mocking smile. "I sure hope you don't dress like that every time you solve a case with chibi-Holmes," he commented.

"What if I do?" Ai challenged, obviously irritated by the thief's obnoxious behaviour.

"I won't feel special anymore," Kid answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And I'll be jealous because more people drop dead around him than there are jewels I want to steal."

"Right," Ai drawled sarcastically, "and I'm jealous you spend more time thinking of riddles for Edogawa-kun than of me."

"We could fix that," Kid grinned, the flirtatious tone still in his voice. "I could drop him a note saying I'll steal _you_ one of these days."

"I'm flattered," Ai deadpanned, "but I'm sure that classifies as either kidnapping or pedophilia."

The thief shrugged as he leaned down and gave her a soft, parting kiss on her cheek. "I already have a rather impressive list of crimes to my name," he replied in a neutral tone that left Ai wondering if he was proud of or guilty about that fact. "One more or one less wouldn't exactly stop them from locking me up if they caught me."

Before Ai could come up with a witty response, Kid had climbed up into the vent, leaving as quickly as he had appeared. The girl looked up into the dark tunnel above her, shaking her head. She would never figure out how he managed to keep the white outfit immaculate, and if she did, she would be selling the product to mothers of children everywhere, and getting rich from it. Oh well, she had more important things to worry about, like finalizing that antidote to APTX-4869. Shrugging, she switched off the light and opened the door.

The last thing she had expected was to come face to face with Conan, who did not look pleased at all.

Still, it would take a lot more than an angry detective who was barely three inches taller than her to make Ai nervous. She crossed her arms casually and looked at him with cool indifference.

"You're going to be late to the heist," she commented.

Conan scowled at her. "Why would I need to attend the heist when I have you right here in front of me?" he asked dryly.

"Oh? And how would having me help you stop the heist?"

Ai sounded genuinely unconcerned, and that perhaps bothered Conan more than the fact that he had overheard her meeting with the thief before the crime. He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her towards the stairs to the roof. When in doubt while dealing with Kid, just head up.

"Kudo-kun," Ai hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Taking you to your accomplice," Conan answered tonelessly, although Ai, having interacted with him for so many years now, detected the disgusted undertone of his words.

"I can only be an accomplice if I've aided him in wrongdoing," Ai interjected flatly.

"You're letting him escape," Conan snapped, turning to her with a spark of fury in his normally calm eyes, one that made Ai wonder for a brief moment if she knew him at all. "Isn't that aiding him in wrongdoing?"

He pushed the door to the roof open and the cool night air suddenly surrounded them like blankets of ice. The wind was blowing mildly, but it was enough to send the ribbons around her waist dancing, intertwining gently with her loose hair like Parisian lovers. The skirt of her dress fluttered softly around her knees, and it suddenly struck Conan that Haibara was very much a girl, a girl that Kid had managed to charm from right under his nose.

The shrunken scientist paused for a second, and then shook her arm out of his grasp. "Arrest me then."

Conan stared at her as though she was crazy. "Arrest you?" he echoed in disbelief.

She shrugged and started to wander towards the edge of the building, looking down at the police cars below and the ruckus around the front entrance. It was obvious that Kid had succeeded in stealing the Heart of Eternity – not that it was a surprise, considering his rival was too preoccupied with _her_ to stop the thief.

"Yes, lock me up," Ai suggested, clasping her hands behind her back and staring up at the moonlit sky. "I'm a criminal, after all. I always was. I'm only here because I still have a mission to accomplish."

"You're not a criminal," Conan insisted, sounding annoyed. "I told you I stopped thinking of you like that years ago."

"Because you needed the antidote," Ai pointed out with a sharp glance in his direction. "You're such a good citizen that if you kept thinking you're living in the same house as a criminal, it would drive you insane. I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't have turned me over if you didn't need me for something."

"That's not true!" Conan denied. "You're _not_ just a cure."

"It _is_ true," Ai countered. "Wouldn't I be just like Kid if you didn't need the antidote? I would just be another person who committed a crime; and you wouldn't care about the reason or if I had a choice."

"But you _chose_ to leave the Organization," Conan argued.

"That doesn't make me innocent, does it, Kudo-kun?" Ai said quietly. "If Kid chose to stop stealing tomorrow, the only reason you wouldn't lock him up is because you don't know who he is."

Conan was silent to this, because he knew she was right. If he knew who Kaitou Kid really was, he would arrest him, even if the thief chose to retire tomorrow. So what was different about Haibara? He knew he wasn't lying when he told her he wouldn't turn her in, even if she found the antidote for him. Why not? Was it because she was his friend? That certainly couldn't be right. He had once told Ran that if Agasa-hakase had committed a crime, he would still turn the man in. Why was Haibara a different case?

"Someone like you, Kudo-kun," Haibara's soft voice interrupted his train of thought, "someone who has never seen the darker side of life, would never understand what it means and what it feels like to commit a crime in order to protect someone you love."

Then, as though she knew she couldn't get past him without being subjected to further interrogation, she ducked underneath the railing at the edge of the building.

Conan's eyes widened. "Haibara! Are you crazy?" he shouted, starting to run forward.

She gave him a familiar smirk and a shrug. "See you at home," she said casually before jumping off the ledge.

"Haibara!"

Conan ran to the railing and looked down, the haunting image of her body lying at the side of road already forming in his mind before he had reached the edge of roof. But when he looked down with absolute horror and fright on his face, the only thing he could see was the familiar triangular shape of an obnoxiously flashy hang glider. He sunk to the ground, hands shaking as he gripped the railing, trying to calm his heart and his breathing.

He had never been so thankful to see Kid in his life.

He would have to sit down and really talk to Haibara when she came home, _if_ she came home. Conan shook his head. She _had_ to come home. An unwanted image of Haibara with Kid flashed through his mind, and an emotion he had only felt for Ran before emerged to the surface.

Jealousy.

Realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He did not like the idea of Haibara meeting Kid in broom closets because he was jealous. Haibara was _his_ best friend. Conan had always thought that he was the closest to truly understanding her. The revelation that Kid understood her _better_ made him afraid that he was going to lose her. She would leave him someday, whether that someday came in the form of him getting his antidote and returning to his previous life or her choosing to walk out of his.

Conan swallowed, a second revelation coming to the forefront of his mind. She had always been _right there_ beside him, and he had always taken her presence for granted, too preoccupied with cases or Ran to notice that she didn't _need_ to be there. And now that the possibility of losing her seemed very real, he was finally realizing something he should have a long time ago.

Sometime in the years they had spent together as teenagers trapped in children's bodies, he had fallen in love with Haibara Ai, the one girl who had the mind to challenge and mock him for everything he said and did.

-----

"You know," Kid drawled as he guided the hang glider over the city of Tokyo, the miniature scientist in one arm, "when you said you wanted to meet me in midair, I didn't think you were also going to start jumping off buildings, Ojou-chan."

"Liar," Ai accused him. "If you didn't, you wouldn't have caught me."

Kid grinned as they landed on top of a lamppost in the park near Agasa-hakase's house. In the dead quiet of the night, there was nobody around. "Although if you missed me so much that you needed to see me before _and_ after the heist, you could have told me instead of doing something so very dangerous," he mock reprimanded with a dramatic tone. "What would I do without you there to accept my roses at every heist?"

"I'm sure Edogawa-kun would be happy to take my place," Ai snickered.

The Phantom Thief blanched for a brief moment at the connotation before the poker face returned and he was grinning mischievously at the girl again. "At least Ojou-chan didn't deny missing me," he remarked.

Ai rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she muttered before tapping the pocket above his heart, where she knew he liked to keep his heist objects. "Is this Pandora?"

Kid sighed dramatically. "It wounds me greatly that Ojou-chan is trying to get rid of me so quickly."

"Because going home to a pissed off detective who will hound me with more questions is just that much better than balancing on lampposts in the middle of the night with an internationally wanted thief," Ai replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"At least it's home," Kid whispered.

Ai looked up into the thief's eyes and for a brief moment, her face softened from the usual mask of indifference and annoyance she wore for the world.

"Yes," she agreed quietly.

Kid jumped from the lamppost, landing gracefully on the ground. He placed Ai onto her own feet and reached into his pocket, taking out the Heart of Eternity and dropping it in her hands.

"No pink smoke?" Ai raised her eyebrow at him.

He grinned. At the snap of his fingers, the gem disappeared in a puff of pink smoke. "Until the next heist then, Ojou-chan," he said, tipping his top hat down and taking off on the hang glider.

Ai sighed as she watched him fly away. Then, she walked over to the lamppost. Sure enough, the blue diamond was winking back at her from the place the Phantom Thief had somehow affixed it. She reached up and removed it from the pole.

"Not what he wanted?"

The voice almost gave her a heart attack, and the girl whirled around to come face to face with Conan for the second time that evening.

"Kudo-kun," she said quietly. "How did you know we were here?"

"I'm a detective," Conan answered with a shrug. "And a white hang glider in the middle of the night is a little hard to miss."

Ai shrugged and held out the gem. "Here, take it back to Nakamori-keibu," she offered.

He stared at the heist object for a long moment, and then gingerly taking the jewel, he looked back up at the girl who had held the valuable as though it was worth nothing more than a dead fish.

"Haibara, if I said I didn't want the antidote anymore, what would you do?" he asked quietly.

She seemed to seriously consider his words for a moment, her eyes clouding over with memories that he wasn't familiar with. She had thought that she was constructing the antidote solely because she felt responsible for restoring his life, since she had ruined its perfection in the first place. But now that he was suggesting he didn't want it, it slowly dawned on her that she didn't _want_ to stop working on it. The Organization may be destroyed, but as long as humankind had ambition and a wish to become God, someone was going to try and finish what the Organization had started. Finding the antidote was stopping the path to death, and perhaps she was trying to atone for unveiling that path in the first place.

Similarly, she was beginning to understand why Kid wanted to find Pandora despite the disbandment of the Organization. He wanted to stop the ability to grant immortality. As long as Pandora and APTX-4869 existed, the heart of the Organization had not yet been destroyed.

Ai closed her eyes and let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. "I would keep trying to find the antidote," she answered.

"Even if I don't want it?"

"Why don't you want it?" she countered. "I thought you were desperate to return to your original life."

He bit his lip noticeably. "I think," he stuttered, taking a wary look at her, "that maybe...maybe I…. maybe I like you, Haibara."

His voice had faded to a whisper by the end of his sentence, but Ai heard the confession nonetheless. She merely stared at him as though he had grown a second head.

"That's not funny, Kudo-kun," she finally replied flatly.

"Of course it's not!" he responded, eyes snapping up to meet hers. "I..."

The rest of his words died on his lips. Neither of them spoke; but in the silence, Ai seemed to have heard the soundless eloquence of his sincerity, and Conan heard the mute harshness of her response.

"He's not real," he finally managed to choke out in a hoarse whisper. "He's just a costume, a symbol, a mask to hide what's underneath."

"And maybe that's why we work," Ai explained. "He's just Kid the Phantom Thief. I'm just 'Ojou-chan'. I don't really care who he is under the mask, and he doesn't really care who I am behind the facade. There's no strings attached."

"That's a really sad way to go about a relationship," Conan couldn't help pointing out.

Ai's smile was melancholic when she spoke. "You know what's sadder?" she asked as she turned away to walk back to Agasa-hakase's house. "If you had told me that you liked me two years ago, it would have made a difference."

Conan didn't know whether she was joking or sincere, and he didn't think he would ever find out. Even meeting as many people as he had in his experience as a detective, he still thought Ai was the hardest person to read. She wore a mask of cool indifference for the world and only those truly privileged could sometimes glimpse what was really underneath it.

Just like it was only possible for an esteemed few to see beyond Kid's poker face.

Or even Conan's own smile of fake ignorance.

-----

End of part 2.

Word Count: 4489


	3. Part 3: Raise the Stakes

No Strings Attached

_Part 3: Raise the Stakes_

By Hikari-chan

Disclaimer: Clearly not mine…for now. Ask me again when Kid/Ai/Conan becomes canon.

Notes: Last part of NSA trilogy. Each part just keeps getting longer. -.-;;; The ending pairing wasn't decided until a couple hundred words before the last line. It just sort of…worked itself there. I love unplanned endings that hit me like a ton of bricks at the last minute. Also, hot beverages vending machines exist in Japan. Thought I'd point that out.

**Genre:** General, Romance/Drama (?)  
**Rating:** PG for innuendoes...again.  
**Pairing:** Kid/Ai/Conan, no maybe's this time. XD  
**Word Count:** 4603

-----

"I told you I don't want it."

He let out a heavy sigh, staring at the tiny capsule he now held in his hands. Here was the answer he had been searching for in the past seven years, but now that he actually had it, it seemed so meaningless. Another three years and he would be seventeen again. Even if this pill really could counteract the effects of APTX-4869, he would still be missing seven years of his life.

"And I told you I didn't just make it because of you," she replied.

"What would you do if I threw it away?" he ventured to ask.

"The same thing as if you took the antidote," she shrugged. "I'll live."

He stared back at the capsule in his hands. Once upon a time, Edogawa Conan had wanted desperately to return to his life as Kudo Shinichi. Shinichi had fame and recognition, and more importantly, Shinichi had the love of his childhood friend, Mouri Ran. Fame and recognition had been easy to get back as the years went by, but Conan would never have Ran's love. However, what Conan wanted was no longer love from Ran, but from Haibara Ai, the genius chemist who had been with him through his years as an adult stuck in a child's body, the one person who truly understood how he felt.

When had things gone awry between him and Ai?

They used to be comfortable together.

He had always thought Ai understood him best out of everyone that he knew. After all, they were the only two people stuck in this rather bizarre situation. He remembered when they used to be able to finish each other's sentences or thoughts, when they would unabashedly break out into arguments or debates everywhere they went. In those days, it had never occurred to him that things would change. Of course, the fact that he wanted to return to Ran's side as Shinichi had sat in the back of his mind, but the possibility of Ai not being there with him and for him had never struck him as something he should worry about. That is, until the night he discovered that Ai met secretly with Kaitou Kid before every heist the thief pulled.

After confronting Ai, he had realized he cared too much to merely watch as Kid took her away. However, the closer he tried to get, the farther she ran. She seemed more cautious and a little bit awkward around him, toning down even the sarcasm she had often used to make fun of him. A year ago, she had suggested he go back and live in his own house, since he no longer needed Agasa-hakase as a legal guardian. Agasa, noticing the recent unease between Conan and Ai, had agreed that it was a good idea. Since Conan hadn't wanted his feelings for Ai to come out in the open yet, he had reluctantly agreed. After all, she was right next door, and even living in the same house, he never saw much of her anyways, as she was often in her lab.

Conan had tried countless methods to get Ai to leave the house in the past few years. Anything that might keep her out of the lab and prolong the time until she found the antidote was worth a shot. His various attempts were often met with deadpan looks and sometimes a slam of her lab door in his face. The one thing she never missed was Kid heists. They often went together to the appointed place of the heist. He would watch her leave the scene before the crime, and every time, it left another hole in his heart, knowing she was going to see the thief. It was like watching her walk out of his life again and again. She would reappear after the heist object had been returned, and every time, Conan felt like Kid had returned _her _instead of the jewel.

Earlier this evening, he had received the phone call he'd been dreading since his love for the miniature scientist had come to his attention.

"Kudo-kun," her familiar voice came through the receiver.

"Haibara," he had replied, a bit surprised by her call. He couldn't remember the last time she had phoned him. She often just pressed that blasted horn that the professor had claimed to be one of his brilliant inventions. Then he would come over and grumble that it was not a civilized way of treating her neighbors.

"I have the antidote," she said with an eerie calmness to her voice. "Come over."

Conan had stared at the receiver for a long time before realizing Ai had already hung up. The antidote to APTX-4869 had been such a big part of their lives that Conan had gotten used to waiting for it. Now that Ai had announced she had it, the situation seemed to have become surreal to him. Perhaps part of him didn't want to think about what having the antidote meant.

He would no longer be linked to Ai in a way that was nearly impossible to duplicate.

Coldness rushed through his veins. Mechanically, he put on his shoes and grabbed his jacket and keys. The steps he took towards Agasa-hakase's house were deliberately slow. Since when had the distance between the two houses been that close? Letting himself in with the spare key the professor had given him when he still lived there, Conan found Ai waiting for him in the living room, a long rectangular box in her lap. She wore a pink blouse with short, puffy sleeves over a gold skirt adorned with pink roses. It was a painful reminder that she would be seeing the Phantom Thief again that night. She never dressed up for _him_ after all, only for Kid.

Ai looked up at him and opened the case, taking out a pill and giving it to him. Conan took it wordlessly and turned it over a few times in his hands, seeming to consider the words he wanted to say while Ai observed him curiously.

"I told you I don't want it."

He let out a heavy sigh, staring at the tiny capsule he now held in his hands. Here was the answer he had been searching for in the past seven years, but now that he actually had it, it seemed so meaningless. Another three years and he would be seventeen again. Even if this pill could really counteract the effects of APTX-4869, he would still be missing seven years of his life.

"And I told you I didn't just make it because of you," she replied.

"What would you do if I threw it away?" he ventured to ask.

"The same thing as if you took the antidote," she shrugged. "I'll live."

He stared back at the capsule in his hands. The pill was the end of his bizarre but unique relationship with Ai. If he took it, he would become Kudo Shinichi again. He would have his original life back. But, he reasoned, Ai and the people he had met as Edogawa Conan were as much a part of his life as the people he knew as Kudo Shinichi. How could he choose between two lives that were just as real?

He clenched his fist around the pill. "Are you going to take it, Haibara?" he questioned.

Her gaze had never wavered from his face. "No," she answered quietly, snapping the case shut.

"Miyano Shiho disappeared when she was taken to the Organization. Sherry died the day she was labeled a traitor and took her own poison. This is who I am."

"I wish I had such an easy time coming to terms with my alter egos," Conan sighed.

Ai smirked. "The scientific term, Kudo-kun, is Multiple Personality Disorder," she informed him, "and I'm sure if you call up a psychiatrist, they'll be happy to help you."

Despite the obvious jab at his sanity, or lack thereof, Conan couldn't help but smile. It had been a while since he had heard one of those retorts from her. Pocketing the pill, he held out his free hand to her.

"Ready to go to the heist?"

She nodded and got up without his help, something he had gotten used to, although it had never stopped his habit of offering to help her. Ai went to the stairs leading to the basement and called down, "Hakase, we're leaving!"

"Ah, be careful, Ai-kun!" Agasa replied just before he yelped and a small explosion was heard from below.

Ai let a smile of fondness cross her lips and followed Conan out the door. The heist would happen at the Suzuki Museum. The heist object was, to the police's surprise, a piece of rock from the moon, named the Reward of Faith. The rock wasn't worth very much, but was valued scientifically because it was the first piece to be brought back from outer space.

Conan and Ai arrived about half an hour early. While Conan walked around the room and surveyed the building, Ai took interest in the other items on display. Nakamori and his team of Kaitou Kid Specialists no longer bothered to deal with either fake teenager. Since neither got in their way and both were familiar faces at Kid heists, Nakamori merely gave Conan a nod of acknowledgement before going back to yell at a random officer about tightening the security.

"So," Conan began as he walked up to Ai and tucked his hands in his pockets, "when's your scheduled meeting?"

The girl gave him a smirk. "Why? Want to join in?" she asked.

"I'd rather not share, if you know what I mean," Conan replied flatly, understanding her connotation easily after having dealt with her for so many years.

"I'd rather not either, actually," Ai drawled. "I was going to allow you to go ahead. I never liked competing for attention anyway."

"Thanks for the generous offer," Conan stated dryly, "but I don't think I'm in the running for

Kid's attention, or rather, his affection."

"Oh? Are you certain?" Ai mocked. "He seems to have a fondness for _pink_, after all."

Conan blanched. "Well, _he's_ not in the running for _my_ affection," he corrected.

"Your loss," Ai shrugged. "Then I'll go ahead with my appointment."

She turned to walk away, but Conan reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her in mid-step. Maybe finding the antidote had put her in a good mood, but it had been a long time since they had bantered like that. The one thing he knew for certain was that he had missed the comfortable atmosphere of their arguments. He had missed _her_.

"Stay," Conan pleaded, squeezing her hand.

"But-" Ai started to protest.

"Once!" he interrupted. "Stay with me, just once."

She stared at him as though he had grown a second head, but when he remained serious for a good minute, she understood that there was something about her meetings with Kid that bothered him more than the fact that the Phantom Thief was an internationally wanted criminal. She slowly withdrew her hand from his grasp, but didn't make a move to leave.

"I'll stay," she agreed quietly, "but only until the heist is over."

It wasn't exactly what Conan had hoped for, but at least she hadn't outright refused him. He nodded and got ready for the heist itself, having a newfound motivation for catching Kid. If he caught the thief this time, Ai would not be meeting him again.

-----

The heist had not been particularly successful in Kid's definition, despite the fact that he had gotten what he wanted. For one thing, the thief thought as he rubbed his arm, his favourite detective had been particularly _aggressive_ during the whole thing, that crazy super-powered soccer ball of his barely missing the thief and even breaking the glass display case behind him. He had a general idea of what might have caused the change in behaviour, but was nevertheless unhappy about the lack of grace with which he had run for the rooftop.

Taking the rock from its hiding place in the front pocket of his shirt, he held it up to the full moon to inspect it.

A glowing red stone appeared inside as the moonlight hit the rock.

He took a sharp breath, poker face failing him for a short moment. After so many years of being Kid the Phantom Thief, it seemed surreal that what he was looking for was now in his hands. He blinked a couple more times, making sure he wasn't just imagining the red stone.

"Reward of Faith indeed," he finally whispered, fist clenching around the rock.

"You found it?"

He looked over his shoulder at the sound of the familiar voice, grinning when he saw her, her hair and skirt fluttering in the breeze around them.

"Ah, Ojou-chan," he greeted. "You missed our appointment earlier today."

"Disappointed?" she mocked him, crossing her arms.

"Very," he affirmed, taking her hand and dropping the customary kiss on the back of it. "I'm afraid, however, that I wasn't disappointed for long."

"It's hard to be when what you've been searching for these past seven years has been found," she agreed, taking out a rectangular box from the pocket of her blouse.

"I was actually referring to the fact that you came to see me after all," Kid replied with a shrug and a grin, "but what you said is true too."

Ai ignored him, instead snapping open the case she held to reveal two pills sitting inside and a microchip. Kid looked at the contents she held up for his inspection.

"APTX-4869, its antidote, and the information for both drugs," he guessed.

"I like your occasional intelligence," she smirked.

"I'm flattered, Ojou-chan," Kid replied. "I was under the impression that you thought all men are stupid."

"Not all men are stupid," Ai corrected. Then, with a snicker, she added, "Some men are dead."

"Nah, men born stupid stay stupid when they die," Kid grinned.

Ai seemed thoughtful for a moment, and then snapping the box close, she said, "True, but people tend to be remembered for their intelligence rather than their stupidity."

A smile played on Kid's lips as he reached for Ai's hand, turning it over and placing the rock in her palm. She watched wordlessly as he put a white handkerchief he seemed to have pulled from nowhere over the rock. Then, after tapping it twice, he pulled off the handkerchief.

The rock remained sitting in the scientist's hand.

"Nothing happened," Ai deadpanned, clearly unimpressed.

"Ah, because normality is easy to see," Kid pointed out, and with the flick of his wrist, a red stone about the size of a cherry appeared in his palm. "It takes intelligence to recognize intelligence."

Ai held the rock up to the moonlight. There was no longer anything in it.

"I can't have anything tarnishing my reputation for returning heist objects, after all," the thief said nonchalantly.

Ai smiled and closed her fist around the rock. "You really are one of a kind," she finally conceded, shaking her head.

"As are you, Ojou-chan," Kid replied, tapping the box that held APTX-4869 with his gloved hand.

"What are you going to do now that Pandora's been found?" Ai asked softly.

"Something legal," Kid joked.

"So you're handing in your resignation letter?"

"After I con Nakamori-keibu into having a retirement party for me," the thief said, a mischievous smile breaking out on his face.

"But of course," Ai smiled.

Both of them were silent, merely staring at each other in the darkness of the night. The spotlights from the ground were shining up towards the roof, searching for their last chance to catch the thief. Watching Kid's cape whip in the wind like the sail of a ship lost at sea, it finally hit Ai that once he took off into the sky, there would never be a "next time". He would be gone from her life, becoming nothing more than a memory. She was not naïve enough to believe she loved him, because she was practical enough to recognize that Kid was merely a costume, a symbol. Still, losing him was like losing a dream, a fantasy, a kind of magic that she had never believed in before, but that he had made into reality.

"Don't look at me like that, Ojou-chan," the thief murmured, his voice soothing and warm in the coolness of the night. "There are a lot of other people out there who care very much about you."

"You mean there's a certain detective out there who cares very much about me," Ai corrected.

"Ah, so Ojou-chan knows," Kid noted.

"I'd be a very bad scientist if I couldn't see something so obvious, even if he didn't tell me himself," Ai replied, a flicker of amusement in her voice. "Take care of Pandora."

"I will," he promised solemnly, "and you take care of the pills."

"Agreed."

He grinned and held his thumb and index fingers together, a red rose appearing suddenly in his hand. He held out the flower to her, and Ai was reminded of the first time they had talked to each other. Gingerly, she plucked the flower from his hand, turning it over a few times to study it.

"It's the last one you'll get from me," he warned her.

She smiled mockingly at him. "I'd hate to ruin tradition though," she responded, tossing the rose behind her. The flower danced in the wind, waltzing to the edge of the building with the breeze before falling to the abyss below.

Kid pouted playfully. "Your loss," he said.

Ai's eyes seemed melancholic to the thief, as though she agreed with him. "Goodbye," she whispered softly.

He leaned down and gave her a tender kiss on the cheek as he always did, and then for the first and last time, brushed his lips delicately over hers. "Goodbye, Ojou-chan."

The cape turned into the flashy hang glider that he was famous for, and then he was off, flying into the night with the police cars underneath chasing him. Ai watched as the hang glider became smaller and smaller in the distance until she finally couldn't see it anymore.

The dreams – and the nightmare – were over.

Kid had found Pandora; she had found the antidote to APTX-4869. Both would be destroyed in the next twenty-four hours. The heart of the Organization would finally die.

-----

After a rather long talk from one of officers about property damage and how he should behave at crime scenes, an aggravated Conan had finally made it to the rooftop of the museum, only to find that Kid had already left. Ai had returned the heist object to him and said something about this heist being the last one. She had been silent all the way home, and though Conan was itching to ask her what she meant, she had looked so tired that he didn't have to heart to interrogate her.

After making sure she had gone home, Conan had walked into his own house, his hands playing with the pill in his pocket, his mind trying to lay out logically what he should do. Along the way, he had made a phone call to Ran. He didn't know why, but his fingers had automatically reached for the phone and dialed her number. He had called her as Conan, and had learned something new that night.

Ran had a new boyfriend. She had met him at her university. She hadn't forgotten Shinichi, but she had moved on.

The news left him with a sense of relief rather than sadness, and it was then that he had realized he wasn't confused about his alter egos. He was confused about the two girls he loved. Shinichi loved Ran; Conan loved Ai. He didn't want to go back to being Shinichi because he would lose Ai, but at the same time, staying as Conan was like abandoning Ran, and he felt guilty about such an action. Knowing Ran had moved on had made it easier for him to move on as well.

Unable to sleep the whole night, Conan decided to go over to Agasa-hakase's place instead of sitting around his own house, even though it was only seven in the morning. He walked into the kitchen, only mildly surprised to see Ai sitting at the kitchen table, staring into the backyard. It looked like he wasn't the only person who hadn't slept all night.

"Hey," he said quietly.

She looked up and blinked a couple of times to make sure he was actually there. "Insomnia?" she asked.

"Something like that," he replied, slightly amused that she had used the scientific term. He held out the pill she had previously given him. "I don't want it. You can take it back."

She stared at the pill for a moment, and then waved it away. "It's yours," she stated. "I don't care what you do with it."

Conan sighed and put the pill back in his pocket. "Breakfast?" he suggested. "I'll treat you."

A small smirk crossed her lips when she looked at him. "I was hoping our first date would be something fancier," she said.

"I don't think the high-class restaurants are open yet," he replied, falling into their casual bantering.

"I'm not hungry," Ai stated, standing up, "but I wanted to take a walk in the park."

"Oh, can I, uh...come along?" Conan asked hopefully.

Ai raised an eyebrow at him. "Last time I checked, I didn't own the park."

That was probably the closest to a "yes" he was going to get, so the two fake teenagers left the house together. They fell into a comfortable silence as they walked. When Ai settled herself on a bench in front of the pond, Conan took out the pill from his pocket. She watched as he toyed with it for another couple of minutes before he threw it into the pond. The pill dissolved into nothingness as the water lapsed at it.

"Wish the poison itself had been that easy to get rid of," Ai mused aloud.

"Is that what you spent the whole night doing?" Conan guessed.

Ai closed her eyes. "Information destruction is a great thing to ponder at night," she muttered sarcastically.

"Coffee?" Conan suggested. "I mean, since you're not hungry for breakfast."

"That...sounds good, actually," Ai admitted reluctantly.

Conan's face lit up with a kid-in-a-candy-store grin. "I'll be right back!" he called as he took off, not even bothering to look back.

Ai stared after him, and then she rolled her eyes heavenward and slumped back in the bench. "Moron," she muttered. "You don't even know how I take my coffee."

"Well, you did say all men are stupid except for the dead ones," a voice drawled next to her.

Ai's head snapped up and she stared at the man who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and taken a seat next to her on the bench. He looked eerily like Conan, except older and with messier hair. He grinned, seeming to revel in the fact that he had taken her by surprise. He held his thumb and index fingers together, and a red rose suddenly appeared in his hand.

"I'm Kuroba Kaito," he said, holding out the rose to her.

A smile appeared on her lips as she plucked the rose from his hand. "I'm Haibara Ai," she replied.

"So, Ai-chan, something bothering you on this beautiful morning?" he asked.

"Just... I wonder what he's thinking sometimes, that stupid detective," she admitted.

"He likes you," Kaito pointed out.

"Really, now that solves everything," Ai responded, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

The man didn't seem to be put off by her obviously unenthusiastic tone. "Actually," he started, "what would solve everything is if you answer this question: do you like _him_?"

"I don't know," Ai confessed softly.

"You don't know or you don't _want_ to know?" Kaito challenged.

Ai bit her lip. Kid was easy to deal with. The Phantom Thief was like a fling on a clear summer night. Things happened, and were forgotten as soon as the sun rose. There was no aftermath, no consequences to deal with. It was easy to submerge yourself in a fantasy that you _knew_ you would wake up from when things got out of control.

Conan was too _real_. If things went wrong, there would be no turning back.

"The stakes are too high," Ai finally answered. "I'm afraid things will change too much."

"Haven't they already?" Kaito questioned. "Besides, you know what they say?"

"I never really liked listening to what other people say," Ai responded. "What if they all told me to jump off a building?"

Kaito grinned, noting the irony in her words. "Then you equip yourself with a hang glider," he joked.

"Thank you for the advice. I'll keep that in mind," Ai retorted, rolling her eyes.

Kaito stood up and smirked down at her. "The higher the stakes, the better the reward," he reminded her. "If you don't risk anything, you'll never gain anything."

"You'd make a good psychiatrist," she stated flatly.

"I doubt it. I'm better at driving people insane," Kaito snickered.

"Haibara!"

Ai turned her head to see Conan hurrying back to her. She opened her mouth to tell Kaito he'd better have a good explanation ready, but when she looked back, the man who had previously been standing there was nowhere to be seen.

"Is something wrong, Haibara?" Conan asked, seeing her confused look.

"No," Ai answered carefully.

"Where did you get the rose?" he wondered. "You didn't have it before."

The shrunken scientist took a look at the flower in her hand, the expression on her face a bewildered one that seemed to say she couldn't remember where it had come from. An amused smile then replaced the look and she threw it over her shoulder.

"Nowhere," she said with a smirk. It was the truth after all. "Where's my coffee, Kudo-kun?"

"Conan," he corrected. At the raise of her eyebrow, he added, "Kudo Shinichi disappeared that day at Tropical Island. I'm Edogawa Conan."

"Ah," Ai nodded in realization. "I see someone has solved his identity crisis."

"You could say that."

He handed her the paper cup and she took a small sip. It was bitter and tasted absolutely awful. She wrinkled her nose and glanced up at him.

"Just because I have trouble sleeping doesn't mean I take my coffee black," she informed him flatly.

Conan laughed nervously. "I forgot to ask how you took it," he replied sheepishly.

Ai sighed. "Did you say earlier that you were going to treat me to breakfast?" she asked.

"And I thought you said you wanted our first 'date' to be fancy," Conan threw back.

"I do," Ai shrugged. "What's the most expensive breakfast place on this side of Tokyo?"

Conan stared at her, his expression a cross between ecstasy and exasperation. After a long moment, he let out a loud sigh and muttered, "Thank God for credit cards."

Then out of habit, he held out his hand to help her up. "Ready to go?" he asked

Ai stared at his hand thoughtfully. The corner of her lips suddenly twitched upwards, smiles chasing each other across her face in the morning sun that kissed her hair a golden blonde. Perhaps the stakes really were too high for someone like her, but the rewards were too tempting for her to resist not trying at all.

"Yes," she answered softly.

And then, she reached up and took his hand.

-----

End of part 3.

End of story.

Word Count: 4603

**Final Notes:** Because I'm sure the ending surprised more than one of you, I thought I'd give a short explanation.  
1) I felt sorry for the dope, err, I mean Conan, as I was writing the first scene.  
2) I had _Kid_ and Ai instead of _Kaito_ and Ai. Between the Kid/Ai pairing and Conan/Ai pairing I portrayed, they're like a fancy ballgown and a pair of comfortable jeans. You like the ballgown because it's pretty & when you wear it, you feel like a fairytale princess, but it's the jeans you come home to at the end of the day. Plus, Kid & Ai's relationship was supposed to be 'no strings attached'.  
3) I tried to make them share. Neither Kaito nor Conan were happy.

And now, this is the official end of "No Strings Attached". I hope you've enjoyed reading the fic as much I had fun coming up with the innuendoes! XDXD


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